Dawn RitchTHERE'S ONE unfortunate characteristic about the Jamaican people, and it is that we sell out before anybody is even buying. Perhaps this is the basis for the international reputation we enjoy for warmth and hospitality. But it leads in the twinkling of an eye to a sense of entitlement and becoming a public nuisance. It's called harassment.
The flip side of this most debased coinage is that we are the only people in the world who hold still for abuse, and "hol' down tek weh", other than Africans. Neither do they have any limit to the extent of abuse they're prepared to take from their own people.
I steadfastly refuse to believe, however, that this trait has been caused by slavery, the Middle Passage, or because any white man flew over Africa dropping food packages from an aeroplane. It's what the British used to call "fecklessness", but poor them, they're in such a bad state themselves now they've probably forgotten that the word even exists.
Not so in Jamaica, we're the living embodiment of the word. Its method of operation is expressed in the everyday words "Just let me through, man". Jamaicans in Jamaica are dead against forming a line or queue, and consider it a complete waste of time. Every Jamaican believes that his confident smile entitles him to immediate attention and obedience. Anything else would be disrespect. Because most Jamaicans can't wait their turn, they're constantly writing themselves and their motor vehicles off against a tree, the traffic light or the nearest lightpole. They're like moths to the flame.
Indiscipline like this is the root of all corruption, because our method of operation is entirely based upon an arbitrary system of favours and waivers. Not only that, but every last person in the island thinks that he or she qualifies for one or the other, if not both. Those who play by the rules don't only get shafted, they get to stay quietly in a dark corner hoping that nobody notices them. So those who play by the rules continue to get shafted all the time, rather than support each other and take a public stand.
Your business fails, so they come to arrest you. Or you just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and you're shot dead. Nothing more than yet another casual statistic in a casual war against crime, prosecuted by a system without rhyme or reason, only favours and waivers. It's a hell of a life to lead, much less do so in complete acquiescence.
This is all part of the fecklessness of the Jamaican personality. From the richest to the poorest we have resigned ourselves to living in fear of the possibility that our doors could be kicked down in the dead of night, in some inexplicable travesty of justice.
I've been a fan of U.S. President George W. Bush from the moment he ran for office. There's not a feckless bone in his body, despite what his father and mother say, but then I didn't think much of his father as a former U.S. President, who left a job unfinished in Iraq, and then starved the Iraqi people with sanctions.
All over the world, however, the peace movement is gathering steam, and the President of the United States still goes to bed at 9:00 o'clock. During the day he keeps putting battleships and battle stations in place to bomb, invade and take Sad-dam Hussein out of Iraq, and is participating in extra-territorial police operations to get Bin Laden and his crew, and getting somewhere in the man-hunt to boot.
Somebody kicked down George W.'s front door, right there in New York city on 9/11, and he has been relentless in pursuit of his attackers ever since. He hopes the United Nations Security Council will back him, but if not he'll lead a "coalition of the willing". Say what you will, but this U.S. President is not feckless, and the American people and world are fortunate to have him leading the fight against terrorism.
Our own Prime Minister, however, the Most Honourable P.J. Patterson, has shown a great fecklessness in the fight against official corruption. So it's a good thing he's not required in the fight against international terrorism. Had Jamaicans a seat on the United Nations Security Council, Jamaica's affirmative vote for war in Iraq wouldn't have cost the U.S. a cent, just a few rides in a stretch limousine for a few Jamaican officials out on a cheap date. It takes a real Turk to negotiate US$30 billion in aid and loans from the United States.
With a perfectly straight face, however, Most Honourable has just launched a Corruption Prevention Commission here in Jamaica. He said, without the slightest trace of embarrassment at the opening ceremony... "I will not abide even a hint of any corrupt practice in this administration." Never mind that Audley Shaw, Opposition Spokesman on Finance, continues to find a fountain perpetually gushing money scandals about the Patterson administration. The establishment of this Commission is therefore the typical behaviour many have come to expect of Mr. Patterson. Not prepared to do anything about corruption himself, he delegates the task to a Commission, saying that a police force free from corruption and a vigilant public are crucial in ensuring that the Commission is able to carry out its job. And what is that job? "To detect and root out corruption from the public sector."
But who is responsible for that? Is this the job of yet another, newly-minted Commission, or is it the continuing public duty of the Most Honourable Prime Minister himself? Is the Prime Minister helpless to root out corruption? Dr. Omar Davies, the Minister of Finance, is the one putting out all these financial guidelines for the public sector which are routinely breached throughout the system, yet he is the public official constitutionally responsible for the finances of the country. Has the Finance Minister abrogated his responsibility? And is the Financial Secretary, head of the Ministry of Finance, quite without teeth? What on earth can be the purpose of all these guidelines, when they are neither monitored nor enforced?
Mr. Patterson knows the Jamaican people well, and realises that he will always have an inexhaustible supply of willing citizens for all the committees he can dream up in a lifetime of rule. The complicity of an entire population permits Mr. Patterson to govern as he wishes, while maintaining the fiction of governing in the interests of the Jamaican people.
